791 research outputs found

    Believable Minecraft Settlements by Means of Decentralised Iterative Planning

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    Procedural city generation that focuses on believability and adaptability to random terrain is a difficult challenge in the field of Procedural Content Generation (PCG). Dozens of researchers compete for a realistic approach in challenges such as the Generative Settlement Design in Minecraft (GDMC), in which our method has won the 2022 competition. This was achieved through a decentralised, iterative planning process that is transferable to similar generation processes that aims to produce "organic" content procedurally.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, to be published in "2023 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)

    Procedural Content Generation in 3 Dimensions using Wave Function Collapse in Minecraft

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    This investigation into the effectiveness of Wave Function Collapse as a Procedural Content Generation Technique (PCG) in Minecraft sets out to determine whether this method can be used easily by players and game designers to generate content that mimics the original content. We also set out to determine whether this technique can be implemented by game designers or community modders easily enough to improve the default generation of settlements in Minecraft. We grade the effectiveness of our output using metrics provided by the Generative Design in Minecraft Competition in order to test whether generated content is effective. Tests were conducted on terrain that was taken from an existing Minecraft world, and featured a mixture of structures ranging from simple to complex in design meant to simulate structures that players would build near the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, our conclusion is that in it’s most basic form, Wave Function Collapse is unsuited as a PCG tool for Minecraft. During the course of our testing, we found that the run times for simple algorithms were too long to be effective, and the algorithm fails to generate content for many of the test cases regularly. In order to make it more suitable, a number of improvements are suggested including global constraints, weight balancing, and layering PCG methods. Overall, this approach has potential, but requires more work before it is a suitable replacement to current PCG methods for Minecraft settlement generation

    The AI Settlement Generation Challenge in Minecraft : First Year Report

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    © 2020 Springer-Verlag. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in KI - KĂŒnstliche Intelligenz. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-020-00635-0.This article outlines what we learned from the first year of the AI Settlement Generation Competition in Minecraft, a competition about producing AI programs that can generate interesting settlements in Minecraft for an unseen map. This challenge seeks to focus research into adaptive and holistic procedural content generation. Generating Minecraft towns and villages given existing maps is a suitable task for this, as it requires the generated content to be adaptive, functional, evocative and aesthetic at the same time. Here, we present the results from the first iteration of the competition. We discuss the evaluation methodology, present the different technical approaches by the competitors, and outline the open problems.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

    EvoCraft: A New Challenge for Open-Endedness

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    This paper introduces EvoCraft, a framework for Minecraft designed to study open-ended algorithms. We introduce an API that provides an open-source Python interface for communicating with Minecraft to place and track blocks. In contrast to previous work in Minecraft that focused on learning to play the game, the grand challenge we pose here is to automatically search for increasingly complex artifacts in an open-ended fashion. Compared to other environments used to study open-endedness, Minecraft allows the construction of almost any kind of structure, including actuated machines with circuits and mechanical components. We present initial baseline results in evolving simple Minecraft creations through both interactive and automated evolution. While evolution succeeds when tasked to grow a structure towards a specific target, it is unable to find a solution when rewarded for creating a simple machine that moves. Thus, EvoCraft offers a challenging new environment for automated search methods (such as evolution) to find complex artifacts that we hope will spur the development of more open-ended algorithms. A Python implementation of the EvoCraft framework is available at: https://github.com/real-itu/Evocraft-py

    Automation of play:theorizing self-playing games and post-human ludic agents

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    This article offers a critical reflection on automation of play and its significance for the theoretical inquiries into digital games and play. Automation has become an ever more noticeable phenomenon in the domain of video games, expressed by self-playing game worlds, self-acting characters, and non-human agents traversing multiplayer spaces. On the following pages, the author explores various instances of automated non-human play and proposes a post-human theoretical lens, which may help to create a new framework for the understanding of videogames, renegotiate the current theories of interaction prevalent in game studies, and rethink the relationship between human players and digital games

    Design and Development of Lifelong Skills-Enhancement e-Programmes Using Monitoring/Evaluation Tools: Exemplars with Policy Recommendations

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    Developing ‘Future Ready’ learners in preparation of Industrial Revolution (IR) through implementation of lifelong skills-enhancement programmes collaborating with various sectors is the recent global governmental aspiration. In response to call for quality technology-enhanced ‘Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics’ (STREAM) education, SEAMEO RECSAM initiated the ‘Learning Science and Mathematics Together’ [LeSMaT (Borderless)] project-based programme under the Golden SEAMEO Basic Education and Student Networking involving blended-mode lifelong education. This article reports SEAMEO Inter-Centre Collaboration (ICC) Education 4.0 project initiative as an offshoot programme of LeSMaT involving Design and Development Research (DDR) in developing lifelong skills-enhancement e-programmes integrating STREAM education with evidence-based output under sub-themes identified from LeSMaT(Borderless) involving ‘Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation’ (ADDIE) instructional model. ‘Analysis’ of these sub-themes were made to develop criteria as guiding focus for project teams to design technology-enhanced learning (TEL) output that could showcase the knowledge/skills required during IR4.0. Literature research was also made on existing e-programmes fulfilling SEAMEO’s priorities. During ‘Design and Development’ phases, e-surveys were developed as monitoring/evaluation tools for tracking of skills-enhancement e-programmes in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  During ‘Implementation/Evaluation’ phases, qualitative/quantitative data collection/analysis methods were implemented involving case study and validation of e-survey entitled ‘Motivation towards STREAM education’ (MoToS). The qualitative analysis integrating ‘type 4’ multiple-case design includes analysing output illustrating curriculum innovation through transdisciplinary studies reflecting Education 4.0 and SDGs whereas quantitative method involved Rasch model to validate MoToS  to monitor/evaluate participants’ engagement  in 1st Regional Workshop on SEAMEO-ICC Education 4.0. The findings using Rasch analysis in the ‘Evaluation’ phase revealed that MoToS is reliable with measure of CA 0.98 internal consistency and ‘feeling stressed on STREAM’ is the most difficult item.  After the e-course series 2020-2022, participants' output was examined using ‘Cross-Case Analysis’ (CCA), ‘Within/Exemplary-Case Analysis’ (WCA/ECA). The e-course series produced evidence-based SDG-related outputs with exemplars integrating SEAMEO Priority Areas No.7 and No.5. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future studies related to Education 4.0 are discussed including developing innovative programmes to improve transdisciplinary quality educatio

    Minecraft\u27s Sandbox: Play in a Virtual World of Creative Exploration

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    Minecraft has impacted the lives of children and adolescents for years, and continues to do so. This thesis explores the similarities between open ended play in the real world, using the metaphor of a sandbox, and play by creating and exploring in the virtual world of the game Minecraft. This thesis builds on a pilot study that investigated the experience of playing Minecraft with young adults. In the present study ten more interviews were conducted with players of a greater range of ages, offering the opportunity to consolidate experiences into broader categories and themes. The interviews illustrated that the experience of the game included social, emotional, as well as creative exploration, which facilitated friendships and enabled personal growth. It became clear that the game provides an invaluable space for children, adolescents and even adults to participate in play as external forces like school, work, and responsibilities discourage them from doing so. Lastly, this study occurred in the spring of 2020, during the start of the quarantine in the United States due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which forced all the interviewees to be isolated in their homes. With no actual space for interaction, the game became a place to stay close and be able to “leave” isolation without actually leaving their homes. In a time of quarantine, where there is literally no physical space for play and connection, the game has provided both

    Enabling collective creativity in schools using Minecraft: serious play

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    Situated in complexity theory this thesis covers the broad area of creativity re-conceptualise creativity within Australian mainstream education, as being something that continually emerges from collective process. In doing so, many of the key characteristics of the Australian education system, were analysed for the role they played in enabling or hindering creativity within a school. M inecraft was a key pedagogical tool used to filter this aspects through to reimagine them. The findings of this study included: 1. Situating pedagogies framed in complexity have limited scope in the current discourse around mainstream Australian education. 2. There is a role for pedagogies that arise out of new and conflicting discourses (e.g., complexity theory). Its place and role are one of continual ‘deterritorialization and reterritorialization’ (Deleuze & Guattari 1987; Roy 2003). Despite existing only on the edge of the discourse, their mere existence is evidence of the potential for change. 3. Digital games based on complexity, such as the MMO game Minecraft, have a place in education and are enablers of systemic creativity. 4. The students in the study were developing new and previously unnamed multithreaded identities through their complex game design and play. I have labelled this new form of identity Vellooming
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